UN holds panel on the fight against violence against women and girls in sport

Women athletes and global human rights leaders called on the United Nations at a General Assembly event on Wednesday to protect safety and fairness for women in sports.

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International joined leaders at UN Headquarters in New York City to host an event to advocate for the human rights of female athletes in the US and around the world.

Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies, US collegiate athlete Lainey Armistead, ADF International CEO Kristen Waggoner and UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women and Girls Reem Alsalem addressed government and UN officials, asking them to support women’s sports honest and feminine. only.

Alsalem last week presented a report to the UN General Assembly calling for global protection for women and girls in sport, which she discussed in her comments to the panel.

Alsalem argued that women and girls are increasingly affected by the removal of single-sex spaces in sports, increasing the risk of sexual harassment, assault, voyeurism and physical and sexual attacks in unisex changing rooms and toilets.

“As patriarchal structures continue to evolve, women and girls in sport experience new forms of discrimination based on their gender,” she said. “A striking example is the opening of the female sports category to men, further undermining their access to equal opportunities and the right to participate with safety, dignity and fairness.”

“In fact, I have no hesitation in saying that the failure to protect the feminine category is one of the most egregious forms of violence against women and girls, as the essence of ‘being feminine’ is willfully pushed aside and ignored, resulting in trouble. pain, humiliation, frustration and anger at the loss of dignity and sheer injustice we face,” she added.

The Biden administration has expanded the definition of sex discrimination and harassment under Title IX to include gender identity and sexual orientation, which athletes, experts and activists have argued will have significant implications for women-only spaces.

Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 was originally a 37-word provision prohibiting schools receiving federal funding from discriminating against students on the basis of sex, ensuring equal opportunity for women in the educational environment.

Alsalem publicly warned the Biden administration in December 2023 that changing the definition of what it means to be a woman under Title IX would result in a “loss of privacy, increased risk of physical harm, increased exposure to sexual harassment and voyeurism, and also as a more common and accumulated psychological distress resulting from the loss of privacy and fair and equal sporting and academic opportunities.”

ADF is challenging the Biden-Harris administration’s attempt to rewrite Title IX protections for women and girls, and while the Department of Education has said the controversial update to Title IX will not include sports or allow transgender women to compete with biological women, experts argue that the current rule already does that.

Armistead is a former collegiate athlete from West Virginia who, along with other athletes, is waging a legal battle with the help of ADF to prevent biological males from competing in female sports categories. She shared her experiences with the UN panel, describing the situations she faced as “demoralizing and unfair, and downright wrong.” She also discussed the conflict between the changes to Title IX and state law.

“West Virginia has a law that ensures only biological women can compete in women’s sports,” she testified. “Yet during my time at WVSU (West Virginia State University), I started hearing stories about women being sidelined – and even injured – while competing against men in women’s sports.”

“In the past three years, the only male athlete allowed to compete against girls in West Virginia has already displaced nearly 300 girls,” she added, referring to a track and field athlete. “And that’s just one athlete.”

Armistead has appealed her lawsuit defending protections for women in sports in West Virginia to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Davies, who competed in three different Olympic Games as a swimmer, also shared her experiences with unfair competition. She lost the gold at the 1980s Olympics to an East German competitor who had been given testosterone as a teenager to improve her performance.

“Women have a physical disadvantage. This doesn’t mean we are worse or better, it just means we are biologically different,” she said. “I don’t know a single person who wants to exclude anyone. However, we do want women to have fair and safe sport.”

“And we cannot wait for a woman to be seriously injured or worse, killed, before we can deal with the science, the obvious and common sense,” she added.

Wagoner spoke about ADF’s legal efforts to protect women, but also about international law, which has long recognized equality and non-discrimination, including on the basis of gender, as a pillar of human rights.

“Unfortunately, many countries have failed to meet their human rights obligations towards women and girls in sport,” she said. “We have learned the hard way that failure to protect women’s sports causes serious harm to women and girls.”

“Our plea to the world is to learn from the mistakes that were made – and are now being corrected – so that your daughters can have a future of fair and safe sports,” she added.

Elyssa Koren, panel moderator, international human rights lawyer and director of legal communications for ADF International, said the inability of women and girls to compete fairly in sports extends far beyond their personal lives.

“Ensuring that female athletes have access to and enjoy the benefits of sport that is free from violence and discrimination will empower women and girls and benefit everyone,” she said. “Female athletes today are increasingly seeing incursions into their women-only spaces, with devastating consequences for not only their opportunities, but also their basic safety.”